Career
Adolph"s father worked at the Abbey in Riddagshausen. His early schooling was at Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. After working for some years as a farmer, he went to study at the University of Berlin.
He took a great interest in birds, collecting their eggs.
His large collection of eggs was bequeathed to the Berlin Zoological Museum. The crimson-crowned flowerpecker (Dicaeum nehrkorni) and the Sangihe white-eye (Zosterops nehrkorni) are two avian species named in his honor.